Little Patch of Earth: Beach Walk #15: Arroyo Quedmada Lane to Cañada San Onofre

Friday, August 14, 2026

Beach Walk #15: Arroyo Quedmada Lane to Cañada San Onofre

The next section I walked was a -0.1 tide on Saturday July 18. My friend Shelley and I started at Arroyo Quemada Lane between Refugio and Cañada San Onofre at 7:30. We started this walk at the eastern side because I felt better about walking up the path at Cañada San Onofre. Getting to this beach involves turning left off the freeway 2 miles north of Refugio State Beach. It is a very bumpy, poorly kept road that ends in a gate. About 600 feet before the gate, there is a large gravel parking area. After crossing the railroad tracks, there is a path off to the left that descends very steeply down the bluff to the beach at the beach wall. Shelley was a trooper!

Entrance to Beach at Arroyo Quemada Lane

Once we were down on the beach, it was a beautiful day. We headed toward Gaviota and had plenty of beach to ourselves. After this, there are a number of houses on Arroyo Quemada Lane with beach access.

We reached the bridge at Arroyo Hondo around 2 miles in. I tried to visit this one back in 2020 during our second Summer of the Beaches but the path down seemed far too steep for kids. Maybe we needed to find this ladder? (If not, which beach is this?)

Arroyo Hondo Bridge

Ladder?!

Of course, we saw some beautiful tidepools along the way as well as some fishermen.

There were a few places where the beach was narrow and would be inaccessible at a higher tide. We also had to use the rocks to cross at the points a couple times, one around 3.4 miles.

We crossed a huge amount of rocks at the mouth of Cañada del Molino. It was dry at this time of year, but might have been hard to cross in the winter/spring. We saw so many incredible rock formations!

I knew we had reached the right spot when we saw the next small rock grouping as well as the beach hut! The path up is on the left (west) of the rock grouping.

San Onofre Beach

It is also possible to do this walk in reverse starting at Cañada San Onofre. Going North on 101, you take the Maricopa exit, then head south 1 mile to the turnout.